College Football Betting By the Numbers: Week 3

When you bet on NCAA Football, you should know all about the numbers. Numbers for stats, numbers for trends, numbers for betting lines, numbers for ‘totals’ – You should know it all. Here at Bang the Book, we are set to talk about the NCAA football betting lines for Week 3. Here are the most important numbers that you need to remember for the week!

0: The number of points that the Wisconsin Badgers and the Arizona State Sun Devils have given up this year combined. Of course, when you really look back at that, shutting out the Massachusetts Minutemen, Sacramento State Hornets, and Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles really isn’t all that impressive. We do know though, that both of these teams are almost certainly to be giving up their first points of the season this week when they take each other on.

2: The number of times this season that a ranked team has been an underdog against an unranked team. The second time comes this weekend, as the Wisconsin Badgers go on the road to take on the Arizona State Sun Devils. The first instance is when the Boise State Broncos went on the road and got killed by the Washington Huskies. We all know just how good unranked teams are against ranked teams when the former is favored, and there is no doubt whatsoever that this is a dangerous game for the Badgers this week in the desert.

3: The number of the service academies that had more passing yards than the USC Trojans last week. Yes, the Men of Troy, who have had so many excellent quarterbacks over the years, only watched as their quarterbacks went 11-of-21 for 54 yards with two picks and no touchdowns. QB Cody Kessler has been named the starting quarterback for this team on a full-time basis, but we aren’t so sure that it is going to make the much of a difference. When you’re not throwing the ball for more yards than the service academies are throwing the ball for, you know that you have some massive problems.

4: The number of defensive touchdowns that the Michigan State Spartans have scored so far this season in two games. Normally speaking, you would say that’s a great accomplishment, but when you look back at the offense, you’ll see that three different quarterbacks threw the football last week against the South Florida Bulls, and the team only has a total of two offensive touchdowns thus far of the year. There are some massive problems right now in East Lansing, and if the team isn’t going to be able to figure out how to score some points, the Big Ten portion of the schedule is going to be really tough.

7: The number of times that the Iowa State Cyclones have covered against the Iowa Hawkeyes over the course of the last nine seasons. These two teams have really gone at each other for the last few years, and the last two campaigns have both ended with three-point wins for ISU. This is yet another season with Iowa favored in this game, and it is the 13th straight season in which that has been the case. However, each of the last four years, the spread is getting a lot closer, and this year at 2.5 is the closest of the bunch.

24: The number of teams that are 2-0 ATS on the season. It’s remarkable to think that we are only two weeks into the year and there are only two dozen teams that are still boasting perfect ATS records that have played more than one game. We’re going to see a lot more of these teams falling this week by the wayside, and a lot of what has to be thanked for that is the fact that so many of the FCS teams that have been covering big time spreads against some of the best in the nation.

37.5: The number of points that the LSU Tigers are favored by over the Kent State Golden Flashes. That makes LSU the biggest favorite of the week for the second straight week. QB Zach Mettenberger continues to look sharp for Offensive Coordinator Cam Cameron, and Kent State has really looked particularly bad in its first two games. The Bayou Bengals will have a tough job to get this game covered, but they should easily roll to 3-0 before starting off the brutal SEC schedule.

41.5: The number of points featured in the ‘total’ for the Boston College Eagles and the USC Trojans, making it the lowest ‘total’ of the weekend. The argument could be made that the world might stop if either of these teams try to throw the football. Between QB Cody Kessler and QB Chase Rettig, there legitimately might not be a single excellent throw down the field over the course of the game. It’s going to be tough to get this game to the number.

42.7: The number of points per game that the Duke Blue Devils gave up last season against teams that won at least six games. The Dookies were particularly atrocious down the stretch of the season last year, and the end result was a lot of points allowed. The team has five straight failed covers against teams that would have been eligible to go to bowl games (had some of them not been on a bowl ban). Now, against the triple option, an offense that the Blue Devils have had no luck stopping over the years is coming to Durham in a huge ACC Coastal Division game against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.

71: The number of points featured in the ‘total’ for the Oregon Ducks and the Tennessee Volunteers, making it the highest ‘total’ of the weekend. The U of O continues to have one of the best offenses in the game, but this is the first time that it has been tested at all. Of course, it’s a matter of opinion as to whether or not the Volunteers are going to end up being able to offer any resistance defensively whatsoever. Oregon has played six of its last eight games beyond the ‘total’ dating back to last season, and as we know, every ‘over’ is always in play when you’re talking about the Ducks.

87: The number representing the percentage of public bets that are coming in on the Louisville Cardinals this week against the Kentucky Wildcats. We know that there is a lot of hype right now regarding QB Teddy Bridgewater and the AAC reps, but this is getting a bit ridiculous. The team move on the Cardinals has been nuts, and the line has already jumped from 11 up to 13 as of Monday night as a result. But is anyone really bold enough to just take the points with the Wildcats? Short of saying that this is an SEC team, albeit a bottom of the barrel SEC team, there really isn’t a lot else to make us believe that the Cats can fight on in this one.

95.5: The number of plays per game that the California Golden Bears have run on offense so far this year. That’s just a tremendous number of plays, even by the standards set by Head Coach Sonny Dykes, who wants to run as fast as he can. The Golden Bears could have some problems running this much against the Ohio State Buckeyes this weekend, but last season, the game between these two stayed awfully close, and this could be another interesting one, especially if QB Braxton Miller doesn’t end up playing for the Buckeyes after spraining his knee last week.

345: The number of yards that QB Johnny Manziel had last season between his arm and his legs last season against the Alabama Crimson Tide. This year, the Texas A&M Aggies are hosting Alabama, and there’s a real chance to get the edge in the SEC West if this game can be won. However, the likelihood of anyone managing over 300 yards against Alabama for a second time is awfully small. Remember though, that the Aggies also ran 75 plays against the Tide, and we have to think that this time around, Texas A&M is going to get slowed down just a bit.

550: The number of rushing yards that the Texas Longhorns gave up last week against the BYU Cougars. Not only is that awfully odd, knowing that the Cougs typically have a team that prefers to throw the ball more so than run it, but it is odds knowing that this was supposed to be a season in which Texas was much improved defensively. Head Coach Mack Brown was clearly on the hot seat before this season started, and losing that game in such stunning fashion against BYU is going to put him on an even hotter chair. The team fired its defensive coordinator this week, and now it has the Ole Miss Rebels to contend with in Austin on Saturday night.

653: The number of yards that the UCLA Bruins had last season against the Nebraska Cornhuskers. The Huskers were 3.5-point favorites when these two teams played last season in Pasadena, but that didn’t seem to matter. No one had really heard of the name QB Brett Hundley at that point, but that was the game that we all learned that this man was for real. This was only the second game for Hundley in his career, and he blew apart the Black Shirts defense. Of course, he also had the help of over 200 yards on the ground from RB Johnathan Franklin, who is no longer here, but Hundley is now a baker’s dozen games more experienced, and Nebraska hasn’t looked good at all on the defensive side of the ball this year.

Adam Markowitz

is a staff writer living in the Orlando area. He has covered NFL, MLB, college football, CFL, AFL, NBA, college basketball, NASCAR, golf, tennis, and the NHL for a number of various outlets in his career, and he has been published by a number of different media outlets, including the Orlando Sentinel and the Wall Street Journal.